


Nine out of Ten

by whatagrump



Series: Excelsior, or Whatever [4]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Multi, Polyamory, Trans Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9331118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatagrump/pseuds/whatagrump
Summary: For the prompt: "Peggy and Alex having their 'we should start a dating advice blog!!!' idea." So that's what it is.A birthday gift for Theoroark (on tumblr and AO3)! Please go read her fic, it's great shit.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theoroark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/gifts).



> This takes place about a year after The Kid on the R Train starts, but before Ski Bums. I'd say August, Year 2 to keep things simple. The worst part of the relationship drama is over at this point, but it’s referenced. Alex is 23, Peggy is 21, Eliza is 22 and a recent college grad, John is 24.
> 
> Content warnings for food, alcohol, and cigarettes, and I think that’s it. Footnotes at the end. There’s a lot this time.
> 
> Comments are much appreciated. I know I haven't been doing a great job working on fic, but comments really do fill me with motivation.

 

“You’ve got about five seconds to explain the state of your fridge.”

Alex flops onto the couch and props his bare feet up on the coffee table. “What are you talking about? I cleaned it last week.”

Laurens opens the fridge door wide enough for everyone in the apartment to get a good, long look. To Alex’s infinite annoyance, Peggy and Eliza both laugh, though Eliza at least tries to stifle her own soft giggle.

“Does ‘cleaning your fridge’ mean ‘throwing away literally everything in it’?” Laurens asks, a little peevishly.

“Well, when you said that I thought you meant it was _dirty._ ”

“There’s a jar of peanut butter, a can of soup, and three _loose eggs_ rolling around in here!”

“Well…”

“Two of those things don’t even need to go in the fridge,” Peggy adds quietly.

Alex runs his hands through his hair and shrugs lamely. “It’s all food.”

“Let’s just pick up some groceries for him,” Eliza says, and starts to put her sandals back on. “John?”

“Yup, right behind you.”

Alex moves to head them off at the door. “Hang on, you can’t just spend my money _for_ me.”

“Honey, I’ll pay for it if it means there’s food in your fridge,” Eliza pleads.

“This isn’t about you, Ham,” Laurens adds. “It’s about _us_. You can’t ask us to trek all the way up to the Bronx for you, and then feed us…I don’t know what. Hardboiled eggs covered in peanut butter?”

“If you want either of us to spend the night, you’re going to let us buy you food,” Eliza says, and gives him a small kiss on the cheek as a sort of added incentive.

Before he can reluctantly agree, both of them are out the door.

“You!” Alex spins around to face Peggy. “Why didn’t you stop them?”

“Why would I?” she asks innocently.

He pulls his hair into a messy ponytail and ignores his third, technically uninvited guest. Not that he doesn’t want her there, he definitely does. His girlfriend’s younger sister enjoys a sort of standing invitation to his apartment. One that she rarely takes him up on.

“I’m curious,” Peggy says as she stretches out on the couch, “what _do_ you keep in your pantry?”

Alex reaches down and cracks the window open with some effort. God, he needs to work out more. “Um. Clothing.”

“ _Clothing_?”

“Yeah, you know. That way I don’t need to buy a dresser.”

“Fuck you,” she sighs languidly.

Like most people, Alex didn’t really “get” Peggy’s sense of humor when he first met her. If he’s being honest with himself, which he tries not to be, he mistook it for open hostility and rolled with it anyway, desperate as he was for friends. Now he knows Peggy well enough to sense when she’s just running her mouth.

He opens the window all the way with a final heave, sending a few paint chips floating down to the little pile at the baseboard. A cool breeze hits Alex’s face and he closes his eyes reflexively. With the weeklong heatwave finally over, his stuffy little apartment is almost habitable.

“Alex?”

“Hmm?” He opens his eyes.

Peggy gestures at his hands. “What’re you doing?”

“Oh! Uh, having a smoke?” Until she pointed it out, he’d barely registered that he’d pulled the cigarette and lighter out of his pocket.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she remarks, eyebrows raised.

“I _didn’t_ ,” Alex mutters as he flicks the wheel of the lighter. “Blame Burr.”

They sit in silence as he lights the cigarette and inhales. Relief hits him hard and fast, but he does his best to hide it. He blows the smoke out the open window and turns back to Peggy.

“Don’t tell Eliza. Or John,” he asks, using the tone of his voice to turn it into a request rather than a demand.

She stretches again as though she didn’t hear him, and her halter top rides up slightly. It’s a far cry from the sweaters and button-downs she’d limited herself to a year ago, and it shows her tattoos off to full effect. Including, Alex silently notes, the cheesy little anchor at the back of her neck that she wishes he didn’t know about.

“Hey, they’re your lungs,” she finally says with a shrug. “Your shitty, shitty, super compromised lungs.”

“Okay, I haven’t had bronchitis for, like, two months,” Alex objects.

Peggy smirks. “Is that a new record for you?”

“You d—oh shit, the cat!” he yelps, and lunges for the damn thing as it darts to the open window. He makes a mad swipe for her collar, somehow latches onto it, and drops the cigarette from his mouth and into his lap. “Fuck!”

“You’re a mess,” Peggy points out unnecessarily as he swats the lit cigarette from his crotch. She gets up from the couch and carries Alex’s wiry grey tabby into the bedroom. To his chagrin, the cat starts to purr as soon as Peggy picks her up.

“Little traitor,” he whispers.

Peggy closes the bedroom door and shuffles back to the couch. “She appreciates her namesake.”

For the hundredth time, Alex kicks himself for _that_ decision. Naming his cat “Peggy” had been a hilarious, if weird, idea when he’d found her in the street a month before. Now, it’s just weird. He mainly calls her “the cat” to avoid confusion, but all of his friends insist on using his new pet’s “Christian name,” as Herc puts it.

Alex plucks the cigarette from the floor, takes another drag, and doesn’t miss the expression that flashes across Peggy’s face.

“Do you want me to put it out?” he asks, his voice neutral.

“No,” she says simply.

“Seriously, I can put it out. I’m not, like, addicted.”

“I don’t care if you smoke, Ham.” There’s a caveat, he can feel it. “I just think you shouldn’t lie about it.”

There it is.

Fuck if she’s not right.

He thumbs at his lip nervously and looks away. “Uh-huh.”

“I mean, not just because it’s wrong. From a practical stance, they’re _definitely_ gonna figure it out. Like…you kiss them with that mouth.”

“Yeah.”

Peggy sits on the floor beside him. “I’m looking out for your best interests, Hammy.”

She’s positioned herself so that it would be incredibly easy and natural to lean on her shoulder, maybe even put his head down on it. Alex knows she’s done it intentionally, that she’s essentially _offering_ her shoulder to him, but he resists the urge to accept it. He doesn’t deserve that right now. Which reminds him…

“I don’t deserve them.”

Peggy laughs and draws back slightly. “For _real_. I’m still not sure how you pulled any of this off.”

He smiles and scoots around so that they’re face to face. “You can interview me about it for your first blog entry.”

For some reason, that seems to stump her. “My first what?”

“The dating advice blog, remember?”

She shakes her head skeptically. “I really don’t.”

“We talked about it at the Fourth of July party!” Alex insists.

“The party we were both completely wasted at,” she says, now firmly convinced that he’s making shit up.

“ _You_ were wasted, I was tipsy,” he corrects. “I said, ‘hey Peggy, you give such great dating advice, why don’t you start a blog about it, or write a column? I bet Angelica can get you a hook up at _Couture_.’ And you said, ‘Hamilton, that is a truly excellent proposition.’”

“That doesn’t sound like me…” Peggy mutters with the faintest hint of uncertainty.

“It sounds like _drunk_ you.”

She shakes her head again with a rueful smile. “I can’t even geta girlfriend of my own. How’m I supposed to help other people?”

Alex can hardly believe what he’s hearing. It’s like Peggy has no idea how much her friends rely on her for guidance and judgment—she’s the central pillar of her family, the glue that keeps the Schuyler sisters together. That’s what Angelica and Eliza always say, anyway. And she curbs even Alex’s dumbest ideas with a 50% success rate. That’s what Laurens always says.

“I don’t know,” he hedges. “You gave me pretty good advice this spring.”

Peggy scoffs. “You think ‘apologize, you massive idiot’ was good advice?” After a beat she levels a slightly more concerned look at him. “You couldn’t have come up with that on your own?”

“There was definitely more to it than that,” Alex says hastily, though now he’s not so sure. Before she can retort, he reaches under the coffee table and pulls out a pen and notepad. “Let’s start with something simple for this theoretical but soon-to-be-very-real advice column: brainstorming the ideal romantic partner.”

“Sure.”

He puts the pen back down in surprise. “Really?”

“Honestly, I’m just curious to see what you pull out of your ass.”

Okay. That sounds more like Peggy.

“Number one: someone who you can stand to be seen in public with. That’s important.”

“Yeah, we’re off to a great start here.” Without looking up he can practically hear her rolling her eyes.

He plows ahead. “You should date someone who’s smart…nice…uh, sensitive? Funny, creative, caring.”

“You’re just listing positive traits,” Peggy objects. “You can’t just list universally agreed upon virtues and call that advice.” 

“Why not?”

This time he does see her roll her eyes—she’s going to get a headache at this rate, if she doesn’t have one already. “ _Because_ , Alex, everyone’s ideal partner is different! It’s about complimentary strengths and weaknesses, it’s about…compatibility!”

Oh, this again. It’s weird how often he hears the word “compatible” in relation to dating, like anyone _actually_ cares about that. 

“C’mon, people don’t date because they’re compatible, they date because they’re lonely and bored,” he says. “Nine out of ten times, people with zero chemistry convince themselves that they’re soulmates just so they can have someone to fall asleep next to.”

Peggy just looks at him flatly. “So you’re dating my sister because you’re lonely and bored.”

“I said nine out of ten, Peg,” he points out quickly.

“What does that make John, then?”

“…A statistical anomaly."

Peggy stares at him with a wide smile.

“What?”

She just keeps smiling. 

“ _What_?”

“I’m gonna tell him you said that,” she grins. 

Oh. “…Please don’t.”

She shakes her head eagerly. “No, too late. I won’t tell them you smoke, but I’m _definitely_ telling John you called him a ‘statistical anomaly.’”

Before he can say anything else, they hear the sound of the front door clattering open and shut five stories below.

“Shit, I think that’s them.” Alex hastily throws the cigarette out the window and heroically manages to ignore Peggy’s sour expression. 

“By the way,” she adds as the sound of footsteps on the stairs grows louder, “you _need_ to stop texting me every time you have sex with my sister.”

He stares at her in disbelief. “Wha—I don’t do that!” 

“Uh, you most definitely do.”

“When have I _ever_ texted you to say that I—”

“You don’t have to say it, it’s just incredibly, incredibly obvious.”

His eyes dart to the apartment door. “No it isn’t,” he says, and only half believes himself. 

“Dude, you text me at, like, 11 PM to wax poetic about her fucking _eyebrows_!”

The door swings open. 

Eliza stares at them both, two grocery bags in her hands as Laurens doubles over with laughter behind her. “He does what?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes!
> 
> • This whole thing is inspired by a letter Hamilton wrote to Eliza in Oct, 1780. Here’s a quote:  
> “Tell my Peggy I will shortly open a correspondence with her. I am composing a piece, of which, from the opinion I have of her qualifications, I shall endeavour to prevail upon her to act the principal character. The title is “The way to get him, for the benefit of all single ladies who desire to be married.” You will ask her if she has any objections to taking part in the piece and tell her that if I am not much mistaken in her, I am sure she will have none.”
> 
> • I don’t think that Hamilton would necessarily be bad about shopping and stuff, it’s more that he’s still very young here and he hasn’t been spending much time in his apartment, and he’s super cheap. Also it’s not been a great year for him, he’s only just coming out of a pretty bad depressive episode.
> 
> • I’ve written about the smoking thing on my blog. I try to make it clear that while I have sympathy for Hamilton, he’s in denial about the whole “addiction” thing. 
> 
> • It’s generally believed that Ham had a dog named Old Peggy (hard to confirm, there’s really only one reference to it that I can find), so I decided a while ago that he had a cat named Peggy in this AU. It’s also the sort of thing that people in their 20s think is funny.
> 
> • All of the “advice” that Ham gives is based off of things he said to Peggy in a letter, including that 9 out of 10 thing. More quotes!  
> “’Tis a very good thing when their stars unite two people who are fit for each other, who have souls capable of relishing the sweets of friendship, and sensibilities. The conclusion of the sentence I trust to your fancy. But its a dog of life when two dissonant tempers meet, and ’tis ten to one but this is the case.”  
> “Get a man of sense, not ugly enough to be pointed at—with some good-nature—a few grains of feeling—a little taste—a little imagination—and above all a good deal of decision to keep you in order; for that I foresee will be no easy task. If you can find one with all these qualities, willing to marry you, marry him as soon as you please.”
> 
> • The idea of him texting Peggy came from the first letter he sent her, go find it, it's great.


End file.
